BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3678, 16 August 1927, Page 2

BIBLE IN SCHOOLS.

BISHOP CLEARY HITS OUT.

Auckland, August 15,

Bishop Cleary, speaking in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, said he had never encountered more misrepresentation, or a deeper sectarian bitterness than was packed into the Hon. L. M. -Isitt’s pamphlet on Bible reading in schools. The Bishop ridiculed the suggestion that it was the Roman Catholic Church represented by himself which prevented reform in the secular system, when Catholic Churchmen represented only about, 4 per cent, of the community. The Protestant clergy had made but feeble protests against the secular system while the Catholic Church at enormous expense had still further increased its own schools with their system of real and proper religious instruction.

Provided the consciences of Catholic children and teachers were protected, the Roman 'Catholic Church would, he said, welcome the reintroduction of religion into the State Schools and would not dictate what particular form it should take. It preferred, however, that a definite and working religion should be elected, not a compromise or a diluted Christianity. There was no such thing as a non-sectarian religion. While the Catholic Church would never surrender its right to State grants for its own schools, it would not let that claim interfere with the restoration of religion in State Schools on terms fair to all. If Mr. Isitt’s Bill became law and public money were expended upon religious exercise suited to the Protestant conscience in State Schools, he concluded, “we shall exhaust every proper means in our power to secure a fair share of such funds for the conduct of religious exercises suited to the Catholic conscience.”